Robert McKinley, Senior Analyst/Editor
Robert McKinley is an analyst of the payments industry on a daily basis for 32 years covering payment cards and payment systems from both the business side and the consumer side. McKinley is the retired founder and chief executive of RAM Research, CardWeb and CardTrak. In his prior position, McKinley has participated in more than 10,000 documented news media interviews, testified as an expert witness in two separate $billion+ U.S. anti-trust trials, testified before the U.S. Congress, assisted the GAO with paymentsIMG_2006 (1).jpeg reports, chaired numerous business conferences and provided C-Suite opinion to a multitude of Fortune 500 companies. In retirement, he has continued developing and funding digital media assets as well as contributing payments related analysis/content to a broad list of online publishers, including CardFlash, CardTrak and CardData. McKinley is also a national certified mentor with the non-profit SCORE organization with a focus on assisting Fintech startups. www.robert-mckinley.com

The Chip & Pin deadline will spur an increase in fraud so saith some. The rate of fraud won’t decrease; it will go up to record levels just before the deadline. Afterwards, we will start to see record levels of Card Not Present (CNP) fraud in the U.S., just as it has risen elsewhere Chip and PIN has been adopted.

Japan’s mobile payment service LINE Pay has unveiled v4.8 and has gone global. LINE Pay is a mobile payment service that lets over 170 million monthly active LINE users (on iPhone or Android) make payments for affiliated services or at affiliated shops in an easy and convenient way, regardless of their carrier or OS.

Prepaid buyers are increasingly younger: 2 in 3 young adults (aged 18-34) surveyed bought prepaid cards, up from 3 in 5 surveyed in 2013. And they are increasingly mobile enabled, as nearly 2 in 3 smartphone owners, 3 in 4 smartphone and tablet owners, and 9 in 10 adults who have paid for goods and services by mobile phone have bought prepaid cards within the previous year.

Boston-based Alpha Software Corporation has integrated its Alpha Anywhere business application development environment with Worldpay, a leading global payment provider, to speed the creation of payment-enabled mobile business apps.

Creditcall EMV-ready payment gateway provider supplied its mPOS payment solution CardEase Mobile to U.S. burgers and fries chain Five Guys. The product, which comprises an mPOS SDK that allows developers to easily add payment functionality to an mPOS offer, is an integral part of a new restaurant queue busting solution for Five Guys in the UK which speeds up customer processing time and also allows for better customer interaction while they are waiting to be served. Staff in 19 Five Guys restaurants are now able to take customers’ orders and mobile payments in the queue via a tablet device that includes Creditcall’s mPOS payment solution CardEase Mobile integrated within Lineten’s NOQU queue busting app.